Villanelles

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Villanelle

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5796 


A villanelle is a seven stanza poem, that works with rhyme, meter and repeated lines.  There are two lines that repeat through the poem;  they also rhyme with each other.  For notation purposes, I call the first repeated line “A1″ (like the steak sauce) and the second repeated line “A2″ (not to be confused with the Pakistani mountain).   (Under rules of poetic notation, these are both referred to as “A” lines because they rhyme with each other, the “A” rhyme.)
Other lines which rhyme with A1 and A2, but which are not the repeated lines, are denoted below as just plain “A”.
The remaining lines of the poem, which do not rhyme with the A lines, but which rhyme with each other, are denoted as “B”.
Here’s the basic form:
A1
B
A2
A
B
A1
A
B
A2
A
B
A1
A
B
A2
A
B
A1
A2
An “easy” way to remember the form is that the all the stanzas. except the last one, have three lines.  The first one begins with your A1 line and ends with your A2 line;  the next four stanzas are in a kind of order with the first ending with A1, the second A2, the next A1, the next A2 again.  (It’s sort of like shampooing your hair—”wash, rinse, repeat.”)  The B lines intersect each stanza (sort of like a basting stitch.)
The last stanza has four lines, ending with a couplet made up of A1 and A2.